Irish Archbishop Loses his Crook

News from Ireland:

The Most Reverend Doctor Richard Clarke was striking the West Door of St Patrick’s Cathedral three times as part of the traditional ceremony when his staff snapped in two.

However he took the mishap in good humour and held the broken staff together as he was welcomed into the cathedral to deliver an address.

 

Anglicans Vow To Vote Again On Allowing Bishopesses

In the Huffington Post:

(RNS) The Church of England plans to rush through legislation to consecrate women bishops after last week’s surprising defeat at the church’s General Synod in London.

The church’s Archbishops’ Council ended two days of closed-door meetings on Wednesday (Nov. 28), and said a plan to allow women bishops needs to be “restarted” when General Synod reconvenes in July. Church leaders originally said the issue could not be reopened until 2015.

The 19-member council acts as the standing committee of the three-tier General Synod made up of bishops, clergy and laity.

“There was agreement that the Church of England had to resolve this matter through its own processes as a matter or urgency,” the group said in a statement. “The Council therefore recommended to the House of Bishops … to put in place a clear process for discussions in the New Year with a view to bringing legislative proposals before the Synod in July (2013).”

American-born Christina Rees, who is a member of General Synod and the Archbishops’ Council, said the unexpected defeat of women bishops has left the church “galvanized and activated.”

“The ‘No’ vote on Nov. 20 has proved to be a wake-up call for the Church of England,” she said Thursday.

In a surprise move, opponents in the General Synod’s traditionalist Catholic Group and the conservative group Reform have called for talks to break the deadlock.

The Catholic Group’s Canon Simon Killwick and Reform’s Rod Thomas had argued there weren’t enough safeguards for dissenters, but said they would not push to block a second vote.

“It has never been our intention to prevent the consecration of women as bishops,” they said in a joint statement.

 

Take a Deep Breath, Anglicans

The Church of England has just defeated, by a very narrow vote, a proposal to allow women to become bishops. The measure needed two-thirds of the vote in each of the houses: the House of Bishops, the House of Clergy, and the House of Laity. It passed the first two, but lacked 6 votes (or five, according to one source) in the House of Laity. Now my friends in England are too, too outraged. They hope the State will impose fairness on a body which cannot seem to achieve it on her own. They feel stunned, they feel almost physically sick, they are ashamed, they say, to be laypeople in the Church of England.

Now all of this I can understand, but ladies (and gentlemen) of the UK, take a deep breath.

The first thing we all need to remember is that it is virtually certain you will have women bishops in the not-so-distant future, just as Episcopalians here in the U.S. have. You’ve waited 2,000 years; what’s five more? I doubt it will take even that long, but whatever the duration, it gives you time to pause and look at the whole complex of issues from a different perspective, so it’s a blessing in disguise, if one lets it be.

Ask yourselves, with all brutal honesty and seriousness, what do you want to be bishops for? I mean, what do you want to be bishops for? And to this question there’s really only one Christian answer, isn’t there? “To love and serve the Christian people.” But of course you can already do this! You can comfort the bereaved, visit the sick and imprisoned, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, counsel the perplexed, instruct the ignorant, proclaim the Gospel, etc., etc., etc. You do not need to be a bishop to do these things; you don’t even need to be a priest. Why let hot tears of indignation distract you from the work at hand? Just do it. Exercise whatever gifts God has already given you.

Ah, but there’s more to it that this, isn’t there? God has given some of you, you tell me, gifts of leadership, which the Church of England isn’t letting you fully use. In effect, you’re telling me your church has been at odds with God from the beginning. And after 2,000 years, you are trying to correct that.

Among the Orthodox Christians here in Richmond, among the Greek ones at least, our spiritual leader is an elderly woman named Adamantia. She’s the one people go to when they need personal advice, when they are wrestling with a church teaching or a spiritual issue such as forgiving others or dealing with bereavement. You already know the Orthodox do not ordain women, so obviously Adamantia holds no church office. So how did she get to be so influential? Is she rich? Is she beautiful? Is she highly educated? Is she the sort who just naturally takes command? No, no, no, and no. Her one and only qualification is that she is Christ with skin on. In her flesh, one readily sees Christ moving and breathing and acting. In her, you encounter His own compassion, kindness, love, humility, wisdom. And that qualification is the greatest, the highest, the all-sufficient. That is what makes this woman our spiritual leader.

Adamantia doesn’t get to be center stage in worship, but she does get to do far more important things. Like praying. And the highest function of all that we mere mortals can perform within the Divine Liturgy, namely to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, she gets to do right along with the rest of us, ordained or lay. (Yes, consecrating the bread and wine is indeed an even higher function, but the priest doesn’t do that; the Holy Spirit does.)

In this same way, you, too, can exercise whatever gifts of leadership God has given you. But being a genuine Christian leader is much harder than merely being made a priest or a bishop; it involves being re-fashioned into Christ. You really don’t want to take the cheap way out, do you?

But I fear all this is still missing your point. There appears to be yet more involved with this highly-charged issue. And it has to do with fairness and rights and equality, and even with how the wider society will regard the Church of England if she is so backward in these things. Is that it, or part of it?

The issue of the wider society is obviously a pressing one, given the hemorrhaging of membership you’ve been experiencing. You desperately need to attract new members. But do be careful! Satan is very subtle, and here is just where he sets his traps for you. There are at least two of them.

One is, you must never be motivated by your church’s needs. God will provide for His Church. God will “grow” His Church. (And if He does not, then one must seriously question whether this church really is His or whether He is deliberately letting her die.) Christians are to leave God’s job to God and let themselves be motivated always and only by love — love unmixed with other motivations, ideally.

The second trap is the temptation to conform to the values of this world. That’s actually the opposite of the Church’s mission to help the wider society conform more nearly to Christ.

What’s worse, and I’m not sure I know yet how to explain why this is so, this temptation to adopt the values of the pagan society around you is, in a terrible irony, the very thing killing the C of E. I stand by distressed to see the C of E committing ecclesiastical suicide and not perceiving that suicide’s exactly what it is.

So to tie the issue of women bishops to the opinions of the secular society is a mistake. Our only legitimate concern is what Christ thinks of the Church, not what anyone else does. Whether Christ calls women to be priests and bishops is a legitimate question, but whether society approves is not…

Complete post here.

Source

 

Half of Women Bishopess Opponents in Synod were Women

Almost half of the lay members of the Church of England General Synod who voted down women bishops were themselves women, official voting returns show.

Hissssss!

According to a list provided by the Church of England, 33 of the 74 members of the House of Laity who rejected the plan to open the episcopate to women were female.

Women’s campaigners rounded on them calling their stance “ridiculous” arguing that those who believe in the idea of “male headship” should have followed the male leaders of the Church and voted in favour.

They also claimed that there had been a deliberate “political” strategy by traditionalists to put up female candidates to the Synod likely to appeal to unsuspecting Church parishioners.

The row erupted as the Church’s powerful Archbishops’ Council prepares to meet to discuss how to find a fast-track solution can be found to what now amounts to a “constitutional crisis” in the established Church.

It is understood that they will even be discussing radical suggestions to circumvent the General Synod and ask Parliament to use its powers to impose women bishops with the full backing of the Church leadership.

A document being discussed at the meeting makes clear that Parliament does not legislate on the internal affairs of the Church “without its consent”.

It has fuelled speculation that the Church leadership could themselves consider asking Parliament to pass a bill allowing women bishops.

One member said last night: “I full expect the Archbishops’ Council to be talking about that tomorrow, we need to consider that seriously.”

A list published by the Church of England yesterday names all of those who voted for or against the measure to allow women to become bishops at last week’s special session in London.

It names the three bishops who voted against – John Goddard of Burnley, Geoffrey Rowell of Europe and Martin Warner of Chichester – all of whom were expected.

Meanwhile Bishop Peter Forster of Chester and Michael Langrish of Exeter abstained.

But in the House of Laity, the list shows several who are said to have spoken in the pats of their support for “women’s ministry” without emphasising their opposition to women becoming bishops.

In total there were 33 women among the laity who voted against, predominantly members of the conservative evangelical bloc who believe in the concept of “headship” – that men are the “head” of both the family and the Church.

April Alexander, a member of the House of laity who voted in favour, said: “There is a massive inconsistency here – how is that a woman who does not have enough ‘authority’ to become a priest themselves can get themselves on the General Synod and presumes to decide who can be a bishop?

“The absolute nonsense of it.”

Christina Rees, another lay member who is also on the Archbishops’ Council, said: “I just find it incredible that women who believe in the dubious concept of male headship should then ignore the leadership of their male bishops.

“I just don’t understand how they can justify their existence on the General Synod”.

Mrs Alexander added: “The other thing that they do is constantly put up these articulate women to speak on their behalf and nobody asks them how this works.

“It is a deliberate political attempt to get sympathy because they are women who supporting this but nobody challenges what right they have to sit on Synod and decide who should be a bishop – it’s like they are saying ‘I can’t be a bishop but I can tell you who should, it’s just extraordinary.”

But Susie Leafe, one of the leading female opponents, said that “headship” did not prevent her from sitting in Synod.

“Headship is about taking responsibility for the spiritual direction of the Church through teaching God’s word and I don’t think that we are teaching God’s word as we vote.”

She added: “The Bible talks about mourning with those who mourn and I hope that’s what we have been doing, being alongside those people because they have been hurt.”

 

It’s a Sad Day…

… when Priests go around publicly comparing their Bishops to lynching mobs, “the  Klu Klux Klan” and “Monty Python”. Really unacceptable.

When I became a Priest, I well remember taking a vow of Canonical Obedience to the Bishop of the Diocese:

“Will you reverently obey your ordinary and other chief ministers of the Church, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you; following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourselves to their godly judgments?”

I answered, “Yes,” to the question that was solemnly put to me on that day. It is thus an obligation required of me.

Further, thanks for all the incoming e-mails (pointing to the above blog post). I do not however want to be drawn by my courageous colleague over in France, nor do I wish to get into a tit-for-tat mud-slinging match and that before a watching fallen world. It will only make for a pathetic and shameful Christian witness. I made my point yesterday. I stand by that until such time as those whom God has placed over me have anything else that they deem necessary for me to know.

Obey your spiritual leaders, and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this with joy and not with sorrow.

- Heb 13:17

Dear brothers and sisters, honor those who are your leaders in the Lord’s work. They work hard among you and give you spiritual guidance.

- 1 Thess 5:12

And that is what I have ‘contented’ myself in.

ACCC (Canada) Election Process for Next Metropolitan and Diocesan Bishop Begins

The Anglican Catholic Chronicle newsletter of the Anglican Catholic Church of Canada for the month of September is out and has the news and more:

… this month also begins the process leading to the election and consecration of our next Metropolitan and Diocesan Bishop. Nomination forms have now gone out to the clergy of the Diocese who form the electoral college; this will be followed by the actual ballot, and eventually to the ratification (or rejection) of the clergy’s choice by the laity through their respective Parishes…

As we undertake this important process, let us pray the Holy Spirit to lead us in the right way that we may elect a devout and good man to be our chief shepherd.

With a diocese extending from coast to coast, it is sometimes difficult to communicate in a timely manner. Which is why the editor of the Anglican Catholic Chronicle invites clergy and laity from our various parishes to send in news, events, commemorations, and pictures to be included in future editions…

You can read more by downloading the paper in pdf. here.

 

Wellington’s New Anglican Bishop Consecrated: Barefoot

Dreadlocked and barefooted:

I’ve mentioned him before on the blog here.

PS – And another strange thing, half a dozen years ago, he wasn’t even an Anglican, let alone ordained.

 

New Anglican Bishop of Wellington: A Dreadlocked and Barefooted Priest

The Anglican Church needs to be ”dusted off” and it believes a dreadlocked, barefooted priest is the man to do it.

Justin Duckworth has been announced as the next Anglican Bishop of Wellington, replacing Bishop Tom Brown who recently retired.

The 44 year-old has been involved in christian work in Wellington since leaving school, although somewhat removed from the mainstream churches.

In his early 20s he began running a home for teenage women in Berhampore with his wife Jenny.

The couple then formed the group Urban Vision with other young christian activists and fifteen years later the group is made up of about 60 members running refuge houses in Wellington neighbourhoods.

Mr Duckworth and his wife also pioneered Ngatiawa, a contemporary monastery in the Reikorangi Valley that provides for strugglers, those seeking retreat, and those looking for a more meaningful lifestyle. Last year, 1100 visitors stayed.

The decision to appoint Mr Duckworth was somewhat unexpected but has been welcomed by Archbishop David Moxon who said he was confident his election would challenge and invigorate the church.

Mr Duckworth said the Anglican Church was struggling with change and transformation but had a fine legacy and huge potential.

”I think the Anglican Church is doing amazing stuff, and is a total treasure. But it’s a treasure that needs to be dusted off.

”At this point in our history we’re aging and I think we’re struggling to find our way. If I can help us find our way and help us engage with another generation, then I’ll be happy.”

Source

A formal announcement is here.

 

Medieval Crozier and Ring Excavated in Britain

While the archaeological charter of this blog is usually of the Syro-palestinian kind, this is way too cool to pass by.

Unexpected medieval treasures have been discovered in a grave at one of the UK’s most beautiful abbeys along with the bones of the abbot they belonged to – probably a well-fed, little exercised man in his 40s who suffered from arthritis and type 2 diabetes.

The discoveries were made at Furness Abbey, on the outskirts of Barrow in Cumbria, a place that in its day was one of the most powerful and richest Cistercian abbeys in the country.

Archaeologists found a silver-gilt crozier (a kind of staff of office) and a jewelled ring in remarkable condition. “This is a very rare find which underlines the abbey’s status as one of the great power bases of the middle ages,” said Kevin Booth, senior curator at English Heritage.

The discoveries were only made because stabilisation work was needed at the abbey, with wooden foundations giving way and cracks appearing in the walls.

During excavations by Oxford Archeology North to investigate the seriousness of the problem, members of the team came across the undisturbed grave of the abbot together with his personal paraphernalia.

Curator Susan Harrison said it was particularly surprising because the grave had not been disturbed by 16th-century post-dissolution robbers, nor Victorian and Edwardian gentlemen antiquarians. Everyone had missed it until now.

The crozier is unusual and the first to be excavated in this country for 50 years. It has a central gilded silver plaque which shows the archangel Michael slaying a dragon with his sword.

The ring – quite large, probably for a man with big or chubby fingers – is likely to have been given to the abbot on his consecration. “It is an unusual ring,” said Harrison. “The bezel is a pyramid shape and is pointed – it would stick in to your finger. You would have felt it when you wore it and it might have been a reminder of the piety of the office.”

It is also possible that the ring might have held a relic in place on the abbot’s finger.

An examination of the skeleton has shown he was big, overweight, probably aged between 40 and 50, arthritic and “had a decent way of living”, said Harrison. There is also evidence that he had later-onset diabetes.

Harrison said the finds were exciting and would help us learn more about Cistercian burial practices in general and Furness Abbey in particular.

The abbey, an inspiration for both Wordsworth and Turner, was founded in the early 12th century by Stephen, later king of England. By the time Henry VIII ordered its dissolution in 1537 it was the second richest in England. The crozier and ring will now go on display at the  abbey over the spring bank holiday.

See? Told you. Very cool.

 

An Episcopal ‘Bishop’ Takes a Shot at Rome and Fleeing Anglicans

Writes John over at Ad Orientem:

It really is one of the more petty things I have seen written by a supposed member of the clergy.  I won’t excerpt or quote it.  If interested you can read it all here.

For those who have concluded that the Anglican Communion is a ship that has foundered and are looking for a new home, I am well aware of the temptation to think Rome is the only logical destination.  Nor will I disparage those who feel called to enter the Roman Church.

But for what it’s worth we Orthodox are also leaving the welcome mat out and the porch lite on…